Times Of Trenton Editorial Board: “We Don’t Need Gun-Toting People Protecting Us At Church”
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 9 months ago
A Republican assemblyman believes you’ll feel safer if the worshiper in the next pew is carrying a concealed weapon.
Ronald Dancer is sponsoring a measure that would allow churches, synagogues and mosques to select what he calls a “qualified person” to bring a concealed handgun into services.
What could possibly go wrong?
The lawmaker, whose district covers parts of Burlington, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties, points out, correctly, that places of worship are a terrorist target.
But he’s way off base in his proposed solution.
Dancer introduced his bill following two mass shootings at U.S. churches in the past three years: the killing of 26 people by a gunman at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last November, and the slaughter of nine congregants at a black church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) had a classic response to the misguided proposal: “Oh my god, you’re kidding me.”
With all due respect to the NRA’s Wayne “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” LaPierre, introducing guns into our state’s (or any state’s) sacred places does not decrease the threat of bloodshed. It multiplies it.
Evidence is growing that adding more firepower to an active shooting scene, with all its attendant confusion and mass hysteria, only increases the odds of innocent people being killed in a hail of bullets.
In the Texas tragedy, for example, more than 40 people were shot before an armed neighbor intervened.
One has to wonder what universe they live in? Did they not think it sounded strange to say that innocent people die in a “hail of bullets until an armed neighbor intervened” in the context of claiming that an armed person would cause more deaths?
Their solution is never proffered, but one assumes that it’s nothing at all. Too bad for the churchgoers in New Jersey. Hey, I wonder how many people on the editorial board of the Times of Trenton Editorial Board even attend church?
Hey, I was also wondering how New Jersey was coming with that problem of assassins and hit men? I’m not trying to make any connection here, mind you. In any case, we can all assume that the New Jerseyans don’t want to be saved by armed neighbors if churches are attacked. They’d rather see innocent men, women and children perish. And with that kind of attitude, attacked they will be. It’s only a matter of time. All they will be able to do is men and women cover the children with their bodies and hope they live.
On February 1, 2018 at 10:38 am, Heywood said:
“Hey, I wonder how many people on the editorial board of the Times of Trenton Editorial Board even attend church?”
Precisely! This was my first thought the whole time I was reading this.
On February 1, 2018 at 11:04 am, Fred said:
Church? Church is for the ignorant masses. It’s their job to prescribe how you will live, under threat of the law, at gun point, or else, because government prescribed existence has always been best, well, except those 100’s of millions killed by government as part of it’s prescription, but that is a small price to pay. They don’t believe in God, they believe in making themselves a god.
Look at the lovely paradise of Venezuela, it’s the people with guns (government) that have food, shelter, and toilet paper…oh, oh my, hmm?
On February 1, 2018 at 12:23 pm, Duke Norfolk said:
“Evidence is growing that adding more firepower to an active shooting scene, with all its attendant confusion and mass hysteria, only increases the odds of innocent people being killed in a hail of bullets.
In the Texas tragedy, for example, more than 40 people were shot before an armed neighbor intervened.”
Did the same person write these two sentences? I had to read them twice to be sure I’d seen it correctly. Total nonsense. These people are so addled by firearms that they cannot think straight.
On February 1, 2018 at 2:42 pm, Bill Robbins said:
My guess is that a Catholic church in NJ is a a safe place to be on Sunday morning. That’s when all the mafia hit-men attend mass to ask forgiveness.
On February 1, 2018 at 8:12 pm, Ned said:
“Hey, I wonder how many people on the editorial board of the Times of Trenton Editorial Board even attend church?”
Yep. I appreciate spiritual and theological advice from Democrat atheist hacks almost as much as I appreciate advice about American culture from DACA recipients.
On February 4, 2018 at 10:26 am, Talktome said:
@Duke, I wonder if the “reporter” meant that cops being involved increase the risks to innocents – now that would make sense. But, we all know that cannot be what was intended because our costumed crime scene clean up crew knows best.